7 ms·

> Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash

> Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. I disagree. Both are bad. When you grow to the size of Facebook, Twitter, etc. Removing content from your own platform allows you to spread propaganda that meets your own agenda. That allows these platforms to promote a politician that maybe trying to reduce corporate tax, and suppress one who is trying to raise it. It’s bad enough these platforms are dictating what’s a conspiracy theory or who we should listen to about Covid.

driverdan 5y ago
Platforms need to moderate content or it will be 90% spam.
- cheif-lama 5y ago
  This is not moderation, this is Hindutwa nationalism trying to shut everybody down.
OzyM 5y ago
I mean, I disagree with (some of) platforms' content removal, but I don't disagree with their legal right to do so. If Twitter becomes a propaganda machine deleting any tweet it disagrees with, I think that's shitty and if I had an account I'd delete it to avoid participating, but I'm not sold on why the government should make that illegal. People and private organizations currently have the right to propagandize in the U.S. (without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc). What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments?
- jaywalk 5y ago
  > What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments? Reach.
  - penultimatename 5y ago
    Compelling counter argument. Why would the First Amendment's freedom of association change because a group is too large or loud in the public sphere?
    - peytn 5y ago
      Where does the First Amendment mention freedom of association?
      - suzumer 5y ago
        Freedom of speech implies freedom of association: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association#United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association#United_...
      - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
        While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the government, the text of the First Amendment does not make specific mention of a right to association. Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others. from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
      - bilbo0s 5y ago
        The fact that Freedom of Association is implicit in the First is not in question. All that's well litigated, and well understood. Which is why one can have country clubs with, for example, racial exclusivity clauses. I'm not saying a like the idea of racial exclusivity policies. I'm only saying the First clearly grants private organizations a right to practice racial exclusivity.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      The First Amendment explicitly differentiates on scale, as in "the people" versus "the government". When companies get large enough to wield power as de facto government, then it makes sense to demand that they too respect our natural rights.
- stale2002 5y ago
  > I don't disagree with their legal right to do so. If the only thing that you care about is the legal requirements, then you are abdicating your ability to criticize these laws in India as well. You need to think beyond what is literally required or not required by law, and think about what the actual effect of a decision or policy is, regardless of who is enforcing it.
- msravi 5y ago
  > without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc So that's the problem in this context. Twitter WAS being used to call for a violent uprising in the name of a blatantly false non-existent "genocide": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773994 To repeat, a farmer rammed a tractor into a barricade causing the tractor to overturn and was killed. The whole thing was clearly caught on camera[1][2]. Within minutes there were blatantly false tweets flying around saying that police had fired on the farmers and there was a genocide in progress (with an associated hashtag). Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. 1. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/farmers-protest-one-dead-as-tractor-overturns-at-ito-area-in-delhi/videoshow/80467597.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY
  - news_user 5y ago
    Twitter did take down tweets and suspended accounts. They were reinstated.
    - msravi 5y ago
      No, they did not take them down immediately (or even the same day) when it mattered. They took them down some 2 or 3 days or so after the incident, after the government cried foul and there was a big brouhaha about the whole thing. The new IT rules mandate a time-bound takedown for lawful requests. Hence the need for a compliance officer.
  - forcry 5y ago
    >Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. The problem of applying censorship to counter fake news is that the same thing can be applied to counter legit news as well. So such a precedent should never be set.
    - msravi 5y ago
      That's a good philosophical position to take, except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest. The messages are used to legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder. The situation is not hypothetical. Twitter itself, of course, does not take that philosophical position.
kube-system 5y ago
It is bad when Twitter removes content. But I don't think that means it should necessarily be prohibited; compelled speech is also bad.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  If you are a true platform, which the social media giants insist that they are, then it's tough to call it "compelled speech" when it was posted by someone who is not representing the company. The company is not the one saying it, despite it being hosted by them.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    It doesn't have to be a first-party statement to be considered "compelled speech". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v._Tornillo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v.... It is pretty reasonable for conversations to have moderation, just as private groups can do in person, and as publications have editors. It is not yet clear how social media fits into the platform/publisher/utility/whatever debate, but I'm just saying that we should be careful. Whatever we decide applies to Facebook/Twitter now will apply to some other company you or I create in the next decade.
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      To me, there are two aspects of that ruling you cited which make it entirely different from social media: 1. "newspapers are economically finite enterprises" - There is a very real cost involved with printing newspapers, while the cost of hosting a social media post is so small it's not even worth mentioning. 2. "the exercise of editorial judgment is a protected First Amendment activity" - Everything that goes into a newspaper has to pass editorial review, meaning the newspaper controls and is responsible for what is published. Social media does not have that.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        The cost of an online news publication is even smaller than a social media site, but we don't limit their speech further. The editorial power of social media sites is kind of nebulous, I guess we'll have a court case that settles this at some point, but I'm not so sure it's clear now.
foxnews35hgrtyu 5y ago
What about "news" channels that do the same? This has been going on with Fox and others for decades. They only propagandize the news.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  They are publishers. They exert full control over what goes on their air.
  - setr 5y ago
    I think more importantly, they're responsible for anything they put on the air. Twitter claims a lack of responsibility, yet also wants to be the final arbiter.
    - jackson1442 5y ago
      Fox has also claimed a lack of responsibility, saying they are not a news outlet but are instead an entertainment provider. https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case-tucker-carlson-2020-9?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case...
      - jaywalk 5y ago
        You should read past the headline. The judge's ruling boiled down to the fact that Tucker Carlson Tonight is an opinion show, not a news show, and that any statements should be viewed through that lens. Nobody, including Fox and Tucker Carlson himself, has claimed that Tucker Carlson Tonight is anything other than an opinion show. This is in contrast to CNN, where their opinion hosts actually do claim to be simply "reporting the news."
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devwastaken 5y ago
Government: can put you in jail, fine you, and enslave you. Corporation: can ban you from their social media platform. It's not equivalent.
edmundsauto 5y ago
It’s not possible to have online communities without moderation. Some people can be so toxic, or say toxic things, that the community is harmed. I think just about anyone who ran a vBulletin forum back in the day understands this at an emotional level.
wavefunction 5y ago
If the argument is that facebook is too big to be regulated by anyone, even facebook, then it's time to break it down into smaller and more manageable parts.
tablespoon 5y ago
>> Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. > I disagree. Both are bad. When you grow to the size of Facebook, Twitter, etc. Removing content from your own platform allows you to spread propaganda that meets your own agenda. That allows these platforms to promote a politician that maybe trying to reduce corporate tax, and suppress one who is trying to raise it. It’s bad enough these platforms are dictating what’s a conspiracy theory or who we should listen to about Covid. Kinda sorta. There are actually two separate but related problems. It makes sense for private parties to be able to remove content on their own platforms, BUT that also becomes an issue if those platforms are able become as dominant "one stop shops" like Facebook or Google. So the real problem is figuring out how to break up the over-dominant platforms.

driverdan 5y ago

Platforms need to moderate content or it will be 90% spam.

cheif-lama 5y ago
This is not moderation, this is Hindutwa nationalism trying to shut everybody down.

OzyM 5y ago

I mean, I disagree with (some of) platforms' content removal, but I don't disagree with their legal right to do so. If Twitter becomes a propaganda machine deleting any tweet it disagrees with, I think that's shitty and if I had an account I'd delete it to avoid participating, but I'm not sold on why the government should make that illegal. People and private organizations currently have the right to propagandize in the U.S. (without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc). What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments?

jaywalk 5y ago
> What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments? Reach.
- penultimatename 5y ago
  Compelling counter argument. Why would the First Amendment's freedom of association change because a group is too large or loud in the public sphere?
  - peytn 5y ago
    Where does the First Amendment mention freedom of association?
    - suzumer 5y ago
      Freedom of speech implies freedom of association: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association#United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association#United_...
    - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
      While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the government, the text of the First Amendment does not make specific mention of a right to association. Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others. from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
    - bilbo0s 5y ago
      The fact that Freedom of Association is implicit in the First is not in question. All that's well litigated, and well understood. Which is why one can have country clubs with, for example, racial exclusivity clauses. I'm not saying a like the idea of racial exclusivity policies. I'm only saying the First clearly grants private organizations a right to practice racial exclusivity.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    The First Amendment explicitly differentiates on scale, as in "the people" versus "the government". When companies get large enough to wield power as de facto government, then it makes sense to demand that they too respect our natural rights.
stale2002 5y ago
> I don't disagree with their legal right to do so. If the only thing that you care about is the legal requirements, then you are abdicating your ability to criticize these laws in India as well. You need to think beyond what is literally required or not required by law, and think about what the actual effect of a decision or policy is, regardless of who is enforcing it.
msravi 5y ago
> without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc So that's the problem in this context. Twitter WAS being used to call for a violent uprising in the name of a blatantly false non-existent "genocide": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773994 To repeat, a farmer rammed a tractor into a barricade causing the tractor to overturn and was killed. The whole thing was clearly caught on camera[1][2]. Within minutes there were blatantly false tweets flying around saying that police had fired on the farmers and there was a genocide in progress (with an associated hashtag). Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. 1. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/farmers-protest-one-dead-as-tractor-overturns-at-ito-area-in-delhi/videoshow/80467597.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY
- news_user 5y ago
  Twitter did take down tweets and suspended accounts. They were reinstated.
  - msravi 5y ago
    No, they did not take them down immediately (or even the same day) when it mattered. They took them down some 2 or 3 days or so after the incident, after the government cried foul and there was a big brouhaha about the whole thing. The new IT rules mandate a time-bound takedown for lawful requests. Hence the need for a compliance officer.
- forcry 5y ago
  >Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. The problem of applying censorship to counter fake news is that the same thing can be applied to counter legit news as well. So such a precedent should never be set.
  - msravi 5y ago
    That's a good philosophical position to take, except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest. The messages are used to legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder. The situation is not hypothetical. Twitter itself, of course, does not take that philosophical position.

kube-system 5y ago

It is bad when Twitter removes content. But I don't think that means it should necessarily be prohibited; compelled speech is also bad.

jaywalk 5y ago
If you are a true platform, which the social media giants insist that they are, then it's tough to call it "compelled speech" when it was posted by someone who is not representing the company. The company is not the one saying it, despite it being hosted by them.
- kube-system 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be a first-party statement to be considered "compelled speech". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v._Tornillo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v.... It is pretty reasonable for conversations to have moderation, just as private groups can do in person, and as publications have editors. It is not yet clear how social media fits into the platform/publisher/utility/whatever debate, but I'm just saying that we should be careful. Whatever we decide applies to Facebook/Twitter now will apply to some other company you or I create in the next decade.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    To me, there are two aspects of that ruling you cited which make it entirely different from social media: 1. "newspapers are economically finite enterprises" - There is a very real cost involved with printing newspapers, while the cost of hosting a social media post is so small it's not even worth mentioning. 2. "the exercise of editorial judgment is a protected First Amendment activity" - Everything that goes into a newspaper has to pass editorial review, meaning the newspaper controls and is responsible for what is published. Social media does not have that.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      The cost of an online news publication is even smaller than a social media site, but we don't limit their speech further. The editorial power of social media sites is kind of nebulous, I guess we'll have a court case that settles this at some point, but I'm not so sure it's clear now.

foxnews35hgrtyu 5y ago

What about "news" channels that do the same? This has been going on with Fox and others for decades. They only propagandize the news.

jaywalk 5y ago
They are publishers. They exert full control over what goes on their air.
- setr 5y ago
  I think more importantly, they're responsible for anything they put on the air. Twitter claims a lack of responsibility, yet also wants to be the final arbiter.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    Fox has also claimed a lack of responsibility, saying they are not a news outlet but are instead an entertainment provider. https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case-tucker-carlson-2020-9?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case...
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      You should read past the headline. The judge's ruling boiled down to the fact that Tucker Carlson Tonight is an opinion show, not a news show, and that any statements should be viewed through that lens. Nobody, including Fox and Tucker Carlson himself, has claimed that Tucker Carlson Tonight is anything other than an opinion show. This is in contrast to CNN, where their opinion hosts actually do claim to be simply "reporting the news."

deleted 5y ago

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deleted 5y ago

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devwastaken 5y ago

Government: can put you in jail, fine you, and enslave you. Corporation: can ban you from their social media platform. It's not equivalent.

edmundsauto 5y ago

It’s not possible to have online communities without moderation. Some people can be so toxic, or say toxic things, that the community is harmed. I think just about anyone who ran a vBulletin forum back in the day understands this at an emotional level.

wavefunction 5y ago

If the argument is that facebook is too big to be regulated by anyone, even facebook, then it's time to break it down into smaller and more manageable parts.

tablespoon 5y ago

>> Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. > I disagree. Both are bad. When you grow to the size of Facebook, Twitter, etc. Removing content from your own platform allows you to spread propaganda that meets your own agenda. That allows these platforms to promote a politician that maybe trying to reduce corporate tax, and suppress one who is trying to raise it. It’s bad enough these platforms are dictating what’s a conspiracy theory or who we should listen to about Covid. Kinda sorta. There are actually two separate but related problems. It makes sense for private parties to be able to remove content on their own platforms, BUT that also becomes an issue if those platforms are able become as dominant "one stop shops" like Facebook or Google. So the real problem is figuring out how to break up the over-dominant platforms.